


Line Change

by icywind



Series: The Best Game You Can Name [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint actually had a fairly decent teenage life, F/M, Gen, Hockey AU, M/M, Past Clint Barton/Bobbi Morse, Pre-Slash, still has some issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icywind/pseuds/icywind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint wouldn’t blame them for trading him after losing it the way he had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Line Change

**Author's Note:**

> For over half my life I have had a deep and abiding love for hockey. Ditto for Hawkeye. It was inevitable that I would write something like this.
> 
> A million and one thanks to [phae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae) for the hand-holding, cheerleading, light beta-read, and general awesomeness.

  


Clint huffed out a sigh and resisted the urge to rest his head against the steering wheel. His life was so screwed. A car door slammed, pulling him from his thoughts and he ended up performing a mad scramble to make it to the elevator (did the car door lock? God he hoped the door had locked.)

“Barton! Barton! Clint!”

Damn. 

“No comment, Jones.”

“Aww, c’mon man, gimme something here.”

“No comment means no comment. I get that you’re pals with Banner and all, and you’re a helluva lot better than some of the bottom feeders that skulk around for a sound bite, but I’m not talking about last night. End of discussion. Media availability is at 11:30.” 

Mercifully the elevator arrived and Clint scrambled in, pressing himself against the wall and slapping the door close button. With a slow exhale he let his eyes slide shut and head thump against the wall. A moment later he felt the telltale prickling sensation that meant eyes were on him and he felt a hesitant tug on his shirt. Cracking his own eyes open, he saw a small boy of about five standing before him. His mother stood a few feet away and offered him an apologetic shrug. 

Right. Public elevator. Because he’d gone to the other side of the complex to avoid reporters.

“Scuse me sir? Are you Mr. Hawkeye sir?” the little boy asked, his mother reaching out in an attempt to shush him. Clint waved her off and dropped into a crouch and smiled at the boy. The fact that he had fans never, ever, failed to delight him.

“I am,” he replied, taking in the faded Avengers t-shirt. The little boy grinned back at him, exposing a gap in his front teeth. “Say…you didn’t lose your tooth fighting did you? Get into a scrum along the boards maybe?” The little boy laughed as he shook his head, glancing down almost shyly at the attention he was receiving. 

“You going to skate with your mom?” the little boy nodded. “That’s good, you work hard and you listen to her and maybe you’ll be an Avenger one day too hm?”

“I want to be just like you when I grow up,” the little boy half-whispered in his ear and suddenly Clint couldn’t quite breathe. He cleared his throat and offered a smile that was just a touch watery.

“I bet you’ll be even better than me,” he managed to reply as the elevator dinged. Reluctantly Clint rose to his feet and the three of them exited. “We’re not really having practice today, but, maybe…maybe next time I’ll see you huh?” the little boy seemed thrilled at the prospect and his mother smiled indulgently. A quick picture and signed puck (Clint always, always, had a few pucks and a sharpie in his bag) and they went their separate ways. 

He tried very, very hard not to think about whether or not he’d even still be on the team by the next practice as he wound his way deeper into the team-only part of the complex. He grinned to himself as he passed by one of the training rooms and heard a few muffled Russian curses followed by a low feminine laugh emanating from it. Sounded like Bucky was undergoing a little early morning rehab with Natasha.

‘Just got him out of the stupid ass KHL and he goes and breaks his damn arm in the preseason, we just cannot catch a fucking break with him’ their GM had muttered darkly a few months ago. The hope was that he’d be back by midseason. Tasha seemed to be taking that as a personal challenge and was aiming for a little earlier.

“Think of it is as a Christmukkah gift,” she’d hummed.

“You’re not Jewish and you’ve never cared about Christmas; furthermore those two are weeks apart this year,” Bucky had growled back.

“I can only work with what I am given. That is my margin of error for you healing in a timely and proper manner.”

Clint was really going to fucking miss her.

He changed out of his civvies and started performing some warm up stretches, trying and failing to keep last night’s game out of his mind.

~~  


To say that the game was going poorly was to say the Hindenburg went down a little quickly. They weren’t getting beaten; they were getting absolutely fucking shellacked. 13 minutes into the tilt and the Thunderbolts had already scored four goals. Bruce just wasn’t on his game, and Clint had no idea why Blake was refusing to pull him. 

“How ya feeling, Jolly Green?” he’d asked during a stoppage in play. Bruce had pulled a face before downing some water. 

“I asked to come out – Blake said no-go.”

“Fucking bullshit.”

“It is what it is, Clint.”

“And what it is, is bullshit.”

Near the end of the period, Clint had had just about enough – and more importantly, found an opening as the zebras were intent on fixing a divot in the ice, delaying the late period face-off. Swapping out with Sam, who raised his brow but shrugged, he lined up and waited.

“Hey Wilson.” Wade’s eyes swiveled around and a large grin split his face. 

“Barton! My man, how’s it going?”

“Wanna dance, man?”

“No shit, seriously?”

“Completely.” 

“Fuck yeah, man. You go for that momentum swing!” 

The fight was brief, but spirited, with Wade yelling out the most random shit Clint had ever heard (“This one’s for you, Bea!” and “Yay it’s fighty time fighty time; blood, blood, blood!” Then it turned more conversational. “Do you suppose anyone has ever tried to make a chimichanga pizza? I bet there could be money in that.” Also, “my mother actually did smell of elderberries, I never understood that insult,” and as he went down he finished with: “kick his ass man, kick his ass!”). Clint was encouraged to see that it left his team with a little extra spring in their step (so to speak) as he sat in the penalty box. Coach Blake, on the other hand, was less than pleased, looking like he’d swallowed something sour (more than usual, anyway), and scolding Clint later on in the locker room between periods.

Once out of the box in the second, Clint found himself benched. Shift after shift he was left to sit and stew. Even during a (rare as a fucking unicorn in this game) power play, which he usually quarterbacked the first unit, he was left behind. It was so pronounced that he had to use the tv timeouts to skate around just to stay vaguely warmed up. Meanwhile, Bruce had been left out to dry, four more goals against and no sign of reprieve. Clint was having a hard time holding his tongue. It started small; snide little comments muttered here and there which then grew a little louder and clearer as the period wore on. 

Finally, with 30 seconds to go, Clint was given the nod…and promptly scored a goal. He couldn’t help the half-assed salute he offered Blake upon returning to the bench.

During the second intermission a stony silence reigned over the locker room, with several players risking glances between Clint and Blake to see if either one would break and say something. 

It wasn’t until after the game, however, that all hell had broken loose. Clint wasn’t particularly proud of what he’d said. ‘Maybe if you’d pulled your goalie early on into his drowning and didn’t handcuff your offense by benching your leading scorer for a full fucking period we wouldn’t have been in that mess in the first place’ was his opening salvo…it hadn’t gotten much better from there and even if the press hadn’t been in the room at the time it wasn’t as if they couldn’t hear the sound of the shouting match. He just couldn’t hold his anger back. Once the press had been let inside Clint had let slip only one comment on the entire affair, but it had been a doozy. 

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe it is us, sure. Or maybe the coach has lost the room. I mean, it’s hard to follow a guy who doesn’t show you one ounce of respect, y’know? 

~~  


Really, a fine and suspension were probably the best outcomes he could hope for at this point, he realized with a shake of his head to clear his thoughts as he pulled on his gear. He couldn’t help but trail his fingers over the ‘Barton 64’ above his stall before wandering over towards the rink, hoping it wasn’t goodbye. 

He wouldn’t blame them for trading him after losing it the way he had. 

As always, the sharp chill and smell of the ice calmed him instantly, the sound of his blades cutting into the ice grounding him. The rink was home. Throughout everything in life the rink had always been home. He took a few laps, getting his legs under him, getting a feel for the sheet (hard and faster than normal – maybe Fitz had been tinkering with the chillers?)

“Where d’ya want these set up?” Speak of the devil, Clint thought as Leo Fitz rolled a few more…unorthodox supplies towards the ice.

“Down by the home net, same configuration as last time,” he replied, gliding over to snag one of the tires. In no time the two of them had set up an obstacle course of tires and sticks and gloves, creating a little more work for Clint to stickhandle through and spots along the wall for him to hit with passes. Fitz retreated with an awkward and aborted attempt to tell Clint he thought everything would be okay (since a fair amount of Fitz’s attempts at being social leaned a bit towards the awkward, Clint didn’t mind so much – found it a little touching, really) and then Clint got down to work.

Over and over he ran the course, forwards and backwards a few memorable times (above average dexterity for the win). He threw in a few breakaways to the far side, scoring a goal top shelf in the little hole left between a propped stick and the goal post. More than once during his training time he thought he felt someone watching him, but they were closed to the public and he couldn’t find any staff lurking when he tried surreptitiously spotting them when he took Gatorade breaks. 

He’d been working for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes when he heard the sound of blades on the ice and a voice called out “incoming” and a body slammed him into the boards. Clint went with it, shielding himself and the puck, and a scuffle ensued as he and the newcomer scrambled for control. Somehow he managed to win, pivoting out of the way, sprinting down the ice and potting an easy wrister.

“Nicely done, Sport.” Bobbi’s smile was brilliant, her cheeks already turning a little rosy and he was hit with a rush of fondness. God he had loved that woman fiercely; still did, actually, but not quiet in the way he (or most people) thought he should have. They had met during the hoopla of dual Men’s & Women’s National Team Orientation Camps for the Vancouver Olympics and sparks had instantly flown. After a brief whirlwind of a romance they had impulsively married (much to the chagrin of damn near everyone that knew them). The marriage had been pretty good, for a little while anyway, but eventually they both realized it wasn’t really working. They separated and divorced amicably, realizing that they’d always still love each other to a certain degree (just not enough) and remained close friends. Weirdly close, more than one person had said, though Clint was never one to really care about societal norms (Bobbi would always be family).

Bobbi’s career in the WNHL had sadly been cut short due to concussion issues, but when a coaching position opened with the Avengers, Fury had jumped at the chance to hire her, bucking the stigma against women in prominent positions within the NHL – something their club was known for. Clint adored having her (and Nat) there. She kept him grounded.

“Wanna play keep away?”

“You know me too well.”

After clearing out all of Clint’s props, the duo proceeded to swing up and down the ice, taking turns protecting/trying to steal the puck. It reminded him of when he was just learning the game, spending time with his foster dad on the ice.

He wasn’t looking forward to that phone call. Had carefully avoided the texts this morning. His parents had to be embarrassed. 

“Hey…” Bobbi said softly, but with a note of command he knew to respond to. “Don’t get lost in your head.” She rapped a knuckle lightly on his helmet as they drifted towards the boards. “It’s all going to be okay, trust me.”

“You know that, huh? Got Fury’s ear?”

She huffed out a long suffering sigh and rested their helmets together. “Clinton Francis Barton I never know what the hell to do with you half the time - hug you or shake some sense into you.”

“Could try both?” he attempted a grin that she responded to, and was about to say something else when a sharp whistle pierced the air.

“Barton! Morse! A word, please,” Fury barked out from the bench.

Shit! Fury was here? Maybe they were going to trade him. It was a little quick, sure, but if it was felt that he was bad for the room, bad for the team, then it could happen. So quick they weren’t even going to meet in his office? God…he hoped Kate was working at the pro shop today so he could say goodbye…

Oh fucking hell.

“Did you know Phil Coulson would be here?” he hissed at Bobbi as the other man came into view. Jesus, fuck, was Coulson attached to another team that he’d forgotten about? Is that how a trade had gone down so fast? And oh shit, did something like this really need to go down in front of him either way? Bobbi only shrugged in reply (so unhelpful) and then a tiny smirk curled the edge of her lip (so far beyond unhelpful it wasn’t funny).

Clint was more than a little into Phil Coulson. Had nursed a pathetic and painful crush on the man for longer than he could really recall. Phil Coulson was an institution in USA Hockey. Clint had had the privilege of playing under him several times in international competition, though sadly not in Vancouver when he’d been the architect behind the team winning gold – a dirty hit by Loki Laufeyson just before the games had resulted in a concussion that caused Clint to miss both the Olympics and nearly the remainder of that season. 

Clint liked to think of himself as a forgiving guy, but he still felt the urge to punch Loki in the mouth every time he saw him. Even though he’d been able to catch a few games at the end of the season, and hadn’t missed any at the start of the next, it had honestly taken a year before he felt completely normal in his own head again.

“Mr. Barton, Coach Morse, good to see you again,” Coulson greeted them and Clint tried to keep his expression pleasantly neutral as he returned the handshake and pleasantries. It didn’t last too long, as Fury ticked his head a bit to get Clint to step to the side while Bobbi and Coulson traded a few more comments that Clint couldn’t hear over the sudden rush in his ears.

“We’re going to have to suspend you for a game, maybe two, but I’m going to go to bat for you to keep it to one because of the stupid ass schedule we have the next two weeks. Don’t need you chomping at the bit for too long with too many off days. You get too reckless and antsy. I’m going to let the kangaroo court decide how much to fine you for the team bank, but I imagine it will be somewhere along the lines of $500 or so.” 

“You’re not…I’m not being traded?” Yeah…it was a little embarrassing that his voice wavered the way it did. 

“Trading you?” Fury’s voice rose an octave and his eyebrow climbed dangerously high. “I’m not saying what you did wasn’t a little stupid, but stupid isn’t catching. I’m not trading the league’s leading scorer for having a temper and a smart mouth.”

Clint hated the way his shoulders sagged in relief, just a little. Fury’s gaze softened perhaps a touch when he picked up on it, though his tone remained disbelieving. Exasperated, really.

“God damn it Barton, did you believe that bullshit?”

“Hard head sir, takes a bit for things to sink in sometimes,” he grinned a little in reply, feeling about two tons lighter.

“Swear to God, Cheese,” Fury began, pulling Coulson and Bobbi back in, “It’s like I’m running a God-damn boarding house for the emotionally insecure,” it sounded harsh, but Clint knew Fury meant no insult by it. More than a few people on their ragtag team had some issues. Somehow they made it work when they were together though. 

“Get cleaned up, Barton, meetings in twenty.” And with that, Fury and Coulson swept back into the locker room, probably heading for Fury’s office.

“Do we know why Coulson is here?” Clint asked as he and Bobbi also made their way off the ice.

“Didn’t say,” she shrugged as they separated and Clint was left to mull over the question as he removed his gear and hopped in the shower. He wasn’t entirely looking forward to dealing with Blake during the meeting (surely that’s who Fury was going to argue with the most about one versus two games for a suspension) but hell, he was so relieved he wasn’t going to be traded he probably wouldn’t care if Blake had him doing suicides for a week as punishment. 

He pulled on some sweats and made his way towards one of the lounges to snag a bottle of Gatorade. Inside he nodded to Luke and Danny as they sat on the floor with Luke’s toddler Danielle, his wife Jessica watching from a chair. Over at a table Steve and Bucky were playing a game of cards while Bruce and Tony (mostly Tony) offered offhand commentary in between their own discussion which involved a great deal of hand waving. Goalies, man. Bruce caught his eye and smiled when he saw the relaxed tilt to Clint’s shoulders. 

Clint popped the top of his Gatorade and held up a wall for a moment, surveying the scattered members of his team and let himself finally relax. 

He really should have expected the jab to his side as Natasha tucked in next to him.

“Bobbi said you were being an idiot.”

“It happens.” He paused a moment as Pym and Lang passed by, arguing about last week’s poker night. “Think I’m mostly better now. For a bit, anyway.” He held still as she studied him closely, a soft huff of air and a light touch to his arm indicating she was okay with what she saw. 

“Coulson’s here,” and the teasing grin she offered made him thump his head against the wall behind him. 

“Please don’t.”

“Not doing anything.” She was lying; her eyes promised nothing but mischief and misery for him. 

“All right losers – time for the meeting,” Jasper said as he entered the room, saving Clint from his fate (a momentary reprieve if he knew Natasha – and he did) as everyone piled out of the room and down the hall. He found himself a seat towards the back and watched as the entire team, coaching staff and all, filed in. Well, everyone but coach Blake. Clint was wondering just what would make him run late when Fury stepped up and began talking.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say we all agree last night was a clusterfuck. But it was a clusterfuck with a silver lining. It proved that something needed to be changed within the organization and provided the impetus for the change.”

Something suddenly began niggling at the back of Clint’s brain as Fury continued to talk. 

“The team has decided to part ways with Blake.”

Oh…oh holy fucking shit…

“So, without any more ceremony or ridiculous flowery language and bullshit I’d like to present your new head coach – that’s full stop head coach none of this bullshit interim business – Phil Coulson.” 

And suddenly Clint wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry as Coulson stepped up to take Fury’s place at the podium. Because he had been right that morning when he’d thought his life was screwed – he just hadn’t known in what way.

Having a ridiculous crush on your head coach was better than the threat of being traded, but yeah, still totally screwed.

  


**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in what I hope to be a series of fics. I have at least several more planned out, though no real time table for them being posted.
> 
> Clint's strange drills aren't all that strange for some kids growing up. On the NHL level, the Colorado Avalanche's Ryan O'Reilly has had [some fun](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4m4SaqFKg) with it [as well](http://www.milehighhockey.com/2012/4/4/2925141/ryan-o-reilly-brings-creative-training-to-the-avalanche).
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [redsector-a](http://redsector-a.tumblr.com/) if you find this interesting and/or amusing enough to want to chat.


End file.
